Will the World End?

Will the World End?
Some 25 year’s ago I read a small book called “When the money runs out”
It was one of those books that claimed to interpret biblical prophecy in particular clarifying the mysteries of end time predictions of the book of Revelation. As a young Christian it made a big impression on me with its talk of barcodes with the number 666 written on them, of grand conspiracy to enforce one world government, one world currency and one super computer based in Brussels (Called the Beast) that was going to control it all. I was convinced that within a short few years if not months I was going to have to have the mark of the beast, probably a barcode tattooed on the back of my hand in order to buy goods. I began to figure out how I could survive once these end times events began to unfold. The writer had done a very convincing job of lining up verse from the bible with contemporary world events. On the eve of 1984 I was convinced the world was going to end very soon.
I don’t regret reading the book nor do I regret the renewed vigour and energy of faith that it inspired. I’ve not had to have that barcode tattoo yet and in the intervening years I’ve seen dozens of similar books that make similar types of predictions again lining up current world events with bible verses. I’ve learned to be a little critical of such approaches.
I’m sure given the current financial crisis that doomsday prophets are making a killing once more.
The end of the world has been a popular concept in western cultural thought for at least 2,300 years. It’s deeply ingrained in our pop culture today; many movies have been made around the theme.
Water World imagines the melting of the ice caps and the total flooding of all land.
Armageddon and Deep Impact both Imagine the Earth being destroyed by a meteor collision.
Films like The Day After and On the Beach imagine a Nuclear Holocaust
The Matrix series envisions a world where humans are enslaved by machines.
Battle Star Galactica, Star Trek and Wal E imagine planets becoming so polluted or ravaged by war and disease that human being must take flight to find a new habitable planet.
Will the world End in some catastrophic way. Dooms day prophets discuss the possibility of nuclear war triggered by a rogue state or terrorist group, Astronomers calculate the chance of a catastrophic collision with a huge meteor and Environmentalists warn that any number of things from global warming, to resource depletion could see the end of human life.
At another level astrophysicists tells us that eventually our sun will burn out in say 4 billion years and the universe which is still expanding after the big bang, will eventually collapse back into a singularity.
It seems then that all things must eventually come to an end. Yet the thought that the sun will burn out or that the universe will be crushed to the size of a pin head hardly keeps me awake at night.
Without divine intervention the world will end eventually – but a more pertinent question is will the world end soon, in my life time or that of my grandchildren perhaps?
What would be really helpful to know is, what does God have planned.
The author of “When the money runs out” and numerous authors of that genre have decided to try and answer that question with a timetable of events leading up to an end of the world.
Throughout the centuries there have been hundreds of movements that prepared themselves for an imminent end of the world. A number of cults surfaced at the turn of the millennia just as others had done likewise a thousand years earlier. Through the 20th century groups in NZ such as the Brethren and Pentecostals churches have been strongly influenced by a rise in Christian fundamentalism that started toward the end of the nineteenth century. Dispensationalist teaching became popular and bibles were printed with footnotes that helped you trace the unfolding of biblical prophecy in the count down to the second coming of Christ.
Fear and anxiety around WW1, the Suez Crisis and the first gulf war and 9/11 made end time teaching popular and drew the punters in again.
What does the bible say about the end of the world? Well it appears that it can say whatever you want it to say so we must tread very carefully. We need to deal with some common pitfalls of interpretation and look at some general themes.
When you read stuff like the book of Revelation or even Jesus own teaching in the gospels about the end of the world it can be quite confusing.
We can be helped from utter confusion if we bear two things in mind. One is the use of literary devices such as metaphor and hyperbole in the scriptures and the other is the use of apocalyptic writing.
Let’s take hyperbole; crudely put it is exaggerating something to make a point. The doctor kindly reassures her patient; “You’ll be fine I‘ve done this millions of times” Of course that is not literally true, but it would be unkind to say the doctor was lying. The doctor is using a well rehearsed figure of speech hyperbole and we all know what the doctor means.
Jesus was a master at the use of hyperbole.
it is easier for an camel to go through the eye of needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
If your right eyes causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
Sometimes it’s difficult to know when hyperbole is being used when should we take Jesus literally and when should we look to see what point he is trying to make through hyperbole. Take this example of Jesus talking about a great time of testing to come just before the end.
"For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be" (Matthew 24:21)
This make interesting reading in the light of similar passage from Ezekiel where he is talking about God punishment being brought to bear on the exiles in Babylon
"because of all your abominations, I will do among you what I have not done, and the like of which I will never do again." (Ezekiel 5:9).
Here we find God pronouncing a great judgment the likes of which He will never do again. Yet Jesus informs us that there would be a Great Tribulation upon Israel that would supersede theme all. They can’t both be right.
Was Ezekiel lying about what God said? Or is Jesus lying? Or do we have here a figure of speech we have not been taught to recognize?
There are over 200 types of figures of speech used in the bible and so we must guard against interpreting the bible literally if we want to get at what the writers actually intended.
Because of the way we have been taught to read the Bible, figure of speech such as hyperbole have often been misread the consequence can be significant . If we, through misinterpreting certain texts, for example, expect that God is going to end the world in our very own generation, we will behave and make different decisions than if we expect the world to go on the way as it is far beyond our lifetime. If a Christian President of the United States, for example, expects because of his understanding of the Bible, that a battle of Armageddon may occur on his watch in which certain countries or ethnic groups are to be the good guys and others are to be the bad guys, then he is likely to make political and military decisions based upon his beliefs. If you believe the world is going to end in your lifetime and you teach this to your children, this will dramatically affect how those children will prepare for the future.
Some portions of the bible are so full of figures of speech that they are almost impossible to comprehend and make no sense if taken literally. There is a whole genre of literature in the bible called apocalyptic literature that is like this. The book of Revelation, part of the synoptic gospels and much of the book of Daniel are recognisably apocalyptic. Apocalyptic literature is characterized by exaggerated predictions of or allusions to a disastrous outcome. Visions and dreams, transportation into heaven, angels, demons, Imaginary beasts and monsters, superhuman beings, symbols and special numbers are part of the stock and trade of the apocalyptic writer. This form of literature first found a place in Israel when Antiochus the fourth king of Syria invaded Israel inflicted barbaric cruelty and desecrated the temple of Jerusalem by sacrificing a pig on the Altar. The people of Israel were so distressed by the evil that they were enduring that they sought for a way to describe how such evil could happen to God own people. Was God still in charge when the righteous faced such tribulation? The Jews drew on some of the stories that they had heard while in captivity, stories of a great conflict in the heavenly world between the two sons of God the one completely good the other entirely evil. The Jews modified the stories and told them in their own way. The best modern comparison is fantasy literature, such as CS Lewis’s Narnia Chronicles, Or Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings or J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter. All stories of Good and Evil in a great battle. Stories with fictional characters. Stories which are certainly fantasy but also profoundly true in the message that they portray.
Apocalyptic literature is not the same as prophesy. It’s much, much more. It tells of great general truths – this sort of stuff happens under these sorts of circumstances. It is warning rather than prediction. Compare it with Jonah’s message to the great city of Nineveh. “God’s gonna wipe you guys out in 40 days” Actually God didn’t, much to Jonah’s disappointment. Threatened with destruction, threatened with an apocalyptic end to their world the people of Nineveh changed their ways and did as God required.
So the threat of the immanent end of the world remains, but its threat rather than a promise, a warning rather than a prediction, a possibility rather than a certainty.
We could destroy the world humanity has that potential
God could destroy the world God is capable.
Neither need happen however, at least not immanently if we change our ways heed the warnings and live God’s way, taking care of one another and the planet.
I want to make one further point about the end of the world and it is this. The end of the world has begun. The end of the world began with the death and resurrection of Jesus. The great expectation of many people in Jesus time and since has been that the world will end at some catastrophic moment in history. And that after the end the kingdom of God will come and a new heaven and a new earth will be formed.
However Jesus said the kingdom is among you. We pray for God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. We have the first-fruits of the kingdom now. Eternal life has begun now. We have been moved from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light.
How then do we deal with those passage that talk of the Heavens and the earth being destroyed before the new heavens and the earth being formed. In the same way that yoiu talk about your new life in Christ!
The Bible says “you have been crucified with Christ”, “the old man has gone”, “the old nature has been put to death”, behold the old has gone and all things are made new”
These statements are figures of speech that evoke a profound reality but cannot be taken literally. As Christian people we have begun a new life in Christ a life in which the old ways are being transformed, our future is so assured that we can be certain that one day we will be as Christ in our perfection and completeness. The bible writers were so certain about our future state that they talked about in the present tense even the past tense. It’s a figure of speech. It’s like a medical student saying I’m a doctor. Or an apprentice saying I am a plumber.
The same phraseology that the New Testament writer use to describe our transformation and future goal they also use to describe the transformation and future goal of the heavens an the earth. I am creating a new heavens and a new earth, the former things shall be no more.
Will the world end?
Will it end in my life time?
I think the biblical answer is Maybe but don’t count on it!
Live as though each day could be your last but work as though your efforts are vital to the preservation and improvement of the world for generations to come.